It smells of my dad

This snippet continues to build on the scene, but makes an explicit personal, emotional connection from Ort’s point of view. (In the previous snippet, you could get by just with physical description of the scene. In this snippet, you need to include a strong point of view.)

There's his big tool box still there, and on it, the big rag that he wipes his hands on. It used to be a pair of my pyjama bottoms until the bum came out. I pick it up. It smells of turps and oil and grease. It smells of my Dad.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

The focus here is a rag, and the action is that Ort picks it up. Couldn’t be simpler.

But what makes this interesting is the personal significance of this rag: it used to be his pyjama bottoms, it smells of his dad.

So where in the last snippet we were quite loose—choose five details and express them however you like—in this snippet we will follow the structure carefully.

Find a focus: Isolate one physical detail in the scene that will have an emotional impact on the narrator.

History: Explain the narrator’s personal history with the focus.

Action: Have the narrator take an action which enables…

Sensory detail: Make a close sensory description of the focus.

Linking to the victim: Have the sensory detail remind the narrator of the victim in some way.

There just away is a tiny piece of blue, one of Imani’s nails. She wears acrylics even though I tell her they’ll make it hard to brake. I walk over to pick it up. It’s smooth on one side and rough on the other, split partway down the middle. It’s the size of my sister’s fingertip.

Her wardrobe has been torn open and among the clothes on the floor I see a faded red cloak like mine. She used to wear it when she was my age. I haven’t seen it for years. I lift it to my face. It smells of lavender and lilac. Like her.

Write your variation here.

First person in That Eye, the Sky 6: The bad event

It smells of my dad